British Motor Heritage Mini Body Shell Build

At the end of 2007 we were kindly invited up to the British Motor Heritage centre in Witney scheduled for the end of January. As luck would have it, this nicely coincided with the latest build of Mini Bodyshells.

Having donned our safety glasses our tour began. Anyone at this point that had visions of an automated production line, with robots and machines doing most of the work was going to be disappointed.

Body shell has arrived for Mini Build at IMM in August.

The new bodyshell for the Mini build has arrived in the warehouse today. We will be building a "Better than New" Mini during the 3 days of the IMM meet in Kent from 1st to the 3rd of August.

Historical Article-February 1995-Cooper body shell

Cooper Body Shell The Heritage specialists fit a shell at the Classic Car show at the N.E.C. Only the latest type production bodyshells are available from Rover, who in their infinite wisdom have reduced the price from £1 ,700 to £950, which may help keep a few more cars on the road.

Historical Article-February 1995-Cooper body shell

Cooper Body Shell The Heritage specialists fit a shell at the Classic Car show at the N.E.C. Only the latest type production bodyshells are available from Rover, who in their infinite wisdom have reduced the price from £1 ,700 to £950, which may help keep a few more cars on the road.

KNOW YOUR MINI TYPE

This is to help you understand which mini you own from a spare parts point of view. Officially There were only Mk1/Mk2 and Mk3 on sales brochures but the Mk4 was introduced by Keith Dodd in 1976 to help people understand the main parts changes. From here we eventually got to MK7

What mini do you own-Make your Mark from this list Confused what mini you own,...

Performance Tuning - Overall considerations

Throughout my admittedly fairly short journalistic career writing for the specialist Mini magazines I've tried my very best to enlighten as many of you as possible about the most common topics put forward by others, but within a magazine there's always limited space and there's always the desire for more.

Wheels & tyres - Bigger wheel fitment consideration

Predominantly 13-inchers, but 12s as well, the main thrust of the questions being 'what do I need to do?'

This subject is a regular visitor to the message board and 'Knowledge' section of Mini Magazine for whom I write - fitting bigger wheels. Predominantly 13-inchers, but 12s as well, the main thrust of the questions being 'what do I need to do?' along with 'which wheel arch extensions will I need?' The answer has always been somewhat 'clipped' purely because of the space availability issues both in the magazine and on the message board, so something a little more detailed was required. Although the Mini suspension was designed around the use of 10-inch wheels with cross-ply tyres, a quick dash through history reveals that fitment of these bigger wheel sizes isn't a recent, 'modern' application.

Wheels & tyres - Problems with 12-inch wheels rubbing

Having applied Hi-Los and some smart 165/60/12 profile tyre shod12 x 5-inch ally rims, discussions get around to a subject that has cropped up a zillion times in the Knowledge, at shows, my e-mail address, etc. - just why does this combination cause the tyre to hit the front arch?

To be more exact - why does the tyre just rub, twang the plastic arch off, or foul the arch to the point of bending it? Even if the genuine, original fitment 'Cooper' alloy 12-inch rims are used with the 165/60/12 tyres? Well, it's all a question of alignment - either subframe to body or suspension to subframe. When trying to source/cure the problem, many folk have discovered that shim plates have been used between the front panel to subframe teardrop mounting and the subframe - and wonder if the car has been in an accident and been 'fudged', so could be causing the problem.

Fitting instructions for Remote Vacuum Servo Units Types 6 and 7

General fitting instructions

To ensure correct installation of the AP Braking remote vacuum servo unit, thoroughly read and adhere to the fitting instructions prior to carrying out any work on the vehicle. Introduction The vacuum servo unit is incorporated into the hydraulic braking system, remote from the master cylinder, as an intermediate stage operating between the master cylinder and the brake assemblies. The two main parts of the servo unit consist of the vacuum servo mechanism and the hydraulic slave cylinder assembly.

These component parts are bolted together so that the slave cylinder piston is in line with, and is operated by, the servo push rod. A plastic no-return valve is fitted into the vacuum shell and an integral air cleaner is incorporated to prevent foreign matter entering the air control valve chamber. The servo unit is designed to give no assistance with very light brake application. In the absence of servo assistance due to loss of vacuum, an unres...

Brands Hatch Bump and Bubbles

Since I last wrote my blog for you all I have not stopped for 5 mins to get my breath so please bear with my fading memory as I write about all that's gone on since the Silverstone race weekend in June. After Silverstone, Justin Cooper asked me if we could go to Brands in his car with two seats so I could teach him the fast way around the track! A decision he and I both regret very much now.

Thank you to everyone involved with 'Mini Build'

A huge big Thank You and a cheque for £30,000 goes to Variety, the childrens charity, for all the amazing work they do. Thanks to the car-build team :- John Sibson, Stuart Wright, Dickie Dowsett, Sandra Wright, Andy McPhail, Richard Stanton-Roberts,
Colin Wright and Justin Jeffery from Mini Spares who organised and arranged the whole operation. Crash Repairs Potters Bar for the preparation and spraying the shell. Newton Commercial for the live trimming displays and fitting the trim to the car. Richard Newton for display Commentary.

Historical Article - Nov 1992 - History in the making

Having built one Cooper ‘S’ for Timo Makinen to use in Historic Rallying, in which he won two International Rallies, I decided to build another one with more power and less weight than the previous one.

One lesson I learnt the hard way building the first car, was that a reliable source of new parts with in-built quality, especially where obsolete parts were being remanufactured, was essential. Mini Spares of London...

Historical Article - Nov 1992 - History in the making

Having built one Cooper ‘S’ for Timo Makinen to use in Historic Rallying, in which he won two International Rallies, I decided to build another one with more power and less weight than the previous one.

One lesson I learnt the hard way building the first car, was that a reliable source of new parts with in-built quality, especially where obsolete parts were being remanufactured, was essential. Mini Spares of London...

Historical Article - Nov 1992 - Little Red Booster 2

A strange choice, you might think, for inclusion in Mini Tech News but, surprisingly the GTM has more Mini parts on it than the Elf! (because the Elf is nearly all space frame).

Historical Article - Nov 1992 - Little Red Booster 2

A strange choice, you might think, for inclusion in Mini Tech News but, surprisingly the GTM has more Mini parts on it than the Elf! (because the Elf is nearly all space frame).

Historical Article-November 1995-Archi Types

Archi-Types While we were compiling the arches page for the new Parts and Accessories catalogue (it will happen soon honest), we came across some interesting arch pictures, together with explanations: Bodywork has to be cut away for extra large wheels to be fitted, and wheel arches can also be modified as the fibreglass arches cover large areas.Some of these kits have ended up on road cars (might be illegal) but most are fitted to out and out racers on either space frame bodies or superlight shells.

Bill Richards Racing looking back on 2010

The Bill Richards Racing Team had mixed fortunes during the 2010 season. The Team opted to chase 2 Championships. The Dunlop Motorsport News Modified Saloon Championship with our Minispares backed Mini Clubman and the SEMSEC Saloon championship with our Metro (Maguire Mini Spaceframe ‘wearing’ a Metro body.)

Meanwhile our TinTop Mini maintained ...

Swiftune’s re-creation of the Longman 1275 GT

It was decided to build the 1978/79 British touring car championship winning Richard Longman 1275GT. The original car still exists remaining just as Richard stepped out of it in 79 and would be sacrilege to rebuild the car to modern...

Thank you IMM 2014

THANK YOU-IMM 2014—BEST International Mini Meet ever WITH A REBUILD FOR CHARITY

The mini spares team arrived on the Thursday 31st July at the Kent show ground and people were clambering over the posh marquee before all the superb displays and stock could properly be set up.

Also on display was Keith Dodd’s cut down Bronze Yellow Cooper S Mk3 Sprint